


Easter Eggs

by firefrog



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Australian spelling, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 19:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16352687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefrog/pseuds/firefrog
Summary: The meaning of Easter can vary. What does it mean for one earth bound angel and his demon?Not as biblically dicey as you may think.





	Easter Eggs

"Did he make it off alright then?" 

"What?” Aziraphale glanced up, then relaxed as he realised who was speaking to him. “Oh, yes - yes He did, poor thing. I went to make sure - rolled the stone off His sepulchre - that sort of thing."

"Hnuh," Crowley grunted, fingering the small mallet and iron spike in the satchel by his side. Good thing he'd been late then. Not that it would have been big as whiles go, spiking the risen again Christ's burial stone shut, but anything to cause a bit of inconvenience was worth a try.

However Aziraphale would have known it was him, and thwarted like thunder. It certainly would have put a damper on today's little get together, anyway. "Heavenly chorus there, I suppose?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes - yes. Everyone who could make it was hovering, I should imagine." The angel absently miracled away a smudge of dirt from the side of his hand that he had just noticed. Those burial stones were heavy.

They sat in silence for a while, the general friendly banter of the public house they were meeting in covering the noise of the market outside.

Something had been bothering Crowley for awhile, and now seemed like as good a time to ask as any. "You think they had that level of … _pain_ in mind when God - er, what did He do? Ask for volunteers?" 

"No, no Jesus suggested it. The suffering of God's mortal children just got to Him in a bad way. But you know God, _no leniency without sacrifice_ , He said. And He agreed to go along with it, forsake His angel life to live as one of _them_." Aziraphale sighed, running a finger round the lip of his earthenware bowl. It held a weak sort of beer, nothing like the old stuff you used to get which you had to dig out with a spoon. This stuff was practicably drinkable.

"Huh. Jesus gets a capital letter now too, does He? Lucky son of a God. Want an egg?" Crowley asked, holding out his satchel to show the four boiled chicken eggs tucked in a pocket. He didn't want the angel brooding all day, after all. A culinary distraction was called for.

"Don't mind if I do," Aziraphale answered, taking out a brown egg with speckles on it. They cracked their eggs in silence, still remembering the recent horror.

"Say, angel. You wouldn't do that, would you?" Crowley licked his lips and glanced nervously at his companion. "Wouldn't, you know - volunteer…."

"To be crucified? No." The angel gave a sad shake of his head, "I would have liked to have been allowed to take a little of His pain the other day, but was forbidden. I stayed away on another hill, sitting on my hands so I couldn't be tempted."

There was a pause while they drank some more, before Aziraphale gave the other a quick look. “I do know what you mean, Crowley. Would _I_ agree to become human and sacrifice myself for the good of all. My dear, they'd never ask a lowly principality like me to do something like that - and I'm rather glad they wouldn't."

"Amen," Crowley muttered into his beer, then his eyes narrowed and a sly smile stole over his face - _Principality?_ , he mouthed. Aziraphale didn't notice.

"The poor love, I really don't think He knew what He was getting into. That's the problem of having only the one angel permanently on earth - none of the others really appreciate what a chore living is."

"Let alone dying," Crowley added. Aziraphale gave him a withering look and the corner of Crowley's black tunic began to smoulder.

"Another beer?" Crowley asked brightly and Aziraphale's gaze dropped back to his hands. As feared, he was beginning to brood.

Crowley got the next round of drinks and hurried back. His companion hadn't moved and now looked somewhat disgruntled.

"I just meant," the angel began, "that we'd have less plagues of boils if up there knew what boils looked like. And smelt like, when they burst and the flesh goes all unpleasant underneath." He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"Sheep," said Crowley. Aziraphale looked at him in mild bewilderment. "If my lot knew how easy the buggers are to catch and kill they'd demand sacrifices of … I don't know … mountain lions. What goods a sheep? Anybody can kill a sheep…."

"Lamb," Aziraphale said sadly, mind wandering back to its original topic. "He was born to be the Lamb of God and take everyone's sins away. It's just so awful. So much pain, and the little lamb…." The weak beer had more of a punch to it than they'd realised.

Tears threatened. Crowley looked quickly round the room, no one was watching them, and with a hiss of his tongue nobody would. Now was not the century for overly emotional displays. Stoning’s were on the rise, and not in a good way.

The demon was nervous about being with Aziraphale. The angel drew attention with his soft waves of long blond hair, perfect skin, lovely even teeth and big blue eyes. There were certain humans that liked the look of him far too much, and Crowley kept getting tempted into doing good when he was around. Protecting angels was considered a _good deed_.

Already today Crowley had had to send two Centurions off from the bar clutching their stomachs as they searched for the nearest latrine. If more humans were to see the beautiful angel in distress the outcome would be – not good.

Said angel had been kind of pissed at him the first time he'd run some would-be-rapists off by setting them on fire. Crowley had appeased Aziraphale's squeamishness by simply giving later troublemakers diarrhoea. Of course what the angel didn't know about _the bloody flux_ wouldn't hurt him. Crowley felt well rewarded for taking the time to share some lamb-on-a stick and a bowl of vino with Pestilence in Benong last decade.

Still, it wouldn't look good if word of this got back down below. Aziraphale had at least obliged him by toning down his angelic looks recently, and Crowley planned on getting him to do more, though the sort of predator drawn to the wide-eyed blond wasn't necessarily in it for his looks. They mistook his open love of, well, _everything_ , as vulnerability. And vulnerability was what called the human hunter. 

Aziraphale wasn't vulnerable, he just looked that way sometimes. Crowley had done his best to smooth the edges off, but until his exposure to humanity taught the angel to mask his innocents Crowley would feel obliged to keep an eye on him.

Really, Aziraphale was doing much better than the demon had thought he would, here on earth. He himself had been feeling sort of adrift and abandoned until he'd realised it wasn't a coincidence that The Angel of the Eastern Gate kept running into him. Aziraphale was stuck here too, and coping as best he could.

Good old Aziraphale, what he needed, what he _really_ needed to get-over this nailing people to bits of wood thing, was another beer. Crowley staggered up and went and got one.

"What's that?" Aziraphale sniffled suspiciously, looking at the plate the demon had brought back with him. It held cheese and some unidentifiable objects that rolled squishily. He hoped they weren't olives. He was getting tired of olives.

"It's little onions," Crowley announced smugly. "Little onions that've been pickled. S'great idea! Seen 'em before in jars, had bits of stuff floating round with 'em, didn't look healthy to me, tasted like vole puke.” Crowley paused to sway dangerously, smiling when the angel reached out to keep him upright. “The humans've fixed whatever was wrong though. Now they're damn tasty. Here, try one."

Unsure if he wanted anything to do with something that might taste like vole puke Aziraphale picked up a soggy onion and gave it a lick. "Hmm," he agreed, then popped the whole thing into his mouth. "You know what, my dear," he said after some chewing and crunching.

"What?"

"Bet you could do something similar with an egg."

o0o

Easter arrived again and all around them people were swapping chocolate eggs and wearing silly rabbit ears on their heads. Aziraphale and Crowley had met in a dingy little pub that the demon claimed had _atmosphere_ and the angel knew had half price beer on holidays. They each lifted a glass topped with a generous froth and clinked them together.

"Wen Lie," toasted Crowley.

"Yasas," Aziraphale replied, and they drank. 

Thirst put at bay Aziraphale somewhat ritualistically brought forth and unscrewed a cloudy glass jar.

All around them humans celebrated the sacrifice, pain and promise of life eternal with pagan religious rites twisted to suite the occasion. 

The demon and the angel lent in together and celebrated the coming together of ideas and the fruits of said idea's labours. They each reached in and grabbed a pickled egg.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old story I dusted off and have re-edited a little. The original is at Fanfiction.com, so if you were thinking this looked familiar, that's probably why.
> 
> All characters belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, the wonderful writing team that created them. Good Omen's is the property of Corgi Books. All rights reserved. No infringement of copyright is intended. No money changed hands.


End file.
